Is Service Pack 2 safe yet?!

Just curious if SP2 has gotten out of "beta mode" yet. A few months ago I heard a horror story from one friend who unknowingly updated to SP2, and lost everything on his hard drive . He had a healthy system before this, and knows what he's doing with his PC. His PC refused to boot after installing SP2 , and nothing would help. He had to take it to a professional recovery service who told him everything was gone and to reformat and reinstall XP. So, I'm not too keen just yet to beta-test SP2 on MY machine! Any other opinions about this?

 

I would say that SP2 is about as safe as it is ever going to be. Percentage wise fewer people had problems with SP2 than SP1, but Adrynalyne would be the person to ask about that. SP2 generally installs with no problems on the majority of computers, provided that they are spyware, malware, and adware clean. I have only had problems with SP2 on one computer, that I later went back and checked only to find that was adware infected. If your hard drive is clean and healthy, go for it!

 

I agree with Novice, completely.

AS for calls into MS, SP2 is no longer the main focus. This is a good thing, as it means that more and more manufacturers are making their programs compliant, and less and less people are installing SP2 on broken systems. It also means that SP2 is breaking less and less systems. Keep in mind, SP2 has not been modified since release.

It helps that OEMS are shipping new computers with it presinstalled, of course.

 

I think if anything it would make your system more stable. I mean, it IS an update. So its going to have not only some new features, but also updates to patch those secuirity holes as well. But thats just my opinion.

 

I've had problems with it. My hard drive was healthy prior to download and afterwards, I had some missing programs and with Internet Explorer, I can only get onto secure sites...if I try a non-secure site, like ebay.com, it says "The Page Cannot Be Found". It is also blocking attachments through Outlook Express that I know are safe. It won't let me open them and won't let me save them either. Very frustrating!!!

 

oakknoll,
YooperLady gave you some sound advice in an earlier post about using FireFox for a browser, as I use it on all my machines and keep IE for Windows updates. I believe that you will find that most of the site members use a browser other than IE.
As for the Outlook Express problem that you mentioned, open OE, look at the top bar and click on the Tools option. On the menu that drops down, go to the bottom and click on Options. From the menu that opens, click on the Security tab. Approximately half way down, you should see a check in a box for an option that prevents Outlook from opening any file or attachment that could be harmful or contain a virus, uncheck the box and apply the changes. You will now be able to open any attachment that you previously could.

 

It always works on a clean format, with nothing else installed.

What does that tell you?

Its an issue with third party software on your computer--malicious or not.

If I can get it working on every machine I've touched, even OEM machines with junk preinstalled, then so can everyone else.

IMHO, of course.

 

to add to that.. I have not had one single problem due to SP2 and I've installed it on dozens of machines.

 

Have only tried on 4 machines so far. Total success every time. Had to learn how to tweak it a bit so it wasn't annoying me so much, but hey, that wasn't so hard!

Imho too, sp2 isn't a problem.

Regretting I put it on dad's ancient abacus though, it does hog his weak cpu and limited ram a bit more than xp did before. But I suppose you aren't really supposed to run xp on 300MHz...

 

SP2 working Fine on two of the PC's I own, I've installed on at least a dozen other rigs, no problems on any.
All the PC's, All had freash & clean install of XP then SP2 off CD, and not one single problem.

Another note, much faster loading SP2, than SP1 and the many updates form microsoft.

It's Great to have SP2 on CD, free from Microsoft, I could'nt believe I got in three days.
Here is the link:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/updates/sp2/cdorder/en_us/default.mspx

 

I'm glad you caught that post before I did..lol.

 

Is it safe it depend .....

For me it's NO i have install on 10 machine and 8 go BOOM !!!
So not very lucky with that !!!

KODO wrote:

to add to that.. I have not had one single problem due to SP2 and I've installed it on dozens of machines.

You must the lucky guy on earth go buy some loterie you will win for shure

P.S how do you do the quote thing with the box ???

 

HALO thank you for your answer !!!!

Testing ........

 

I've installed on at least twice that many computers without issue.

There was something wrong with your OS, or SP2 didn't jive with the programs installed.

I repeat, SP2 goes fine on a fresh install, even though I have installed it many times on not so fresh installs.

Sorry you are having bad luck.

 

http://secunia.com/internet_explorer_command_execution_vulnerability_test/
Secunia - Internet Explorer Command Execution Vulnerability Test
needs another bandaid

 

I agree sp2 works all the time if you do it rite, I wrote this in hardware eairler and this has worked for me many times.

"I have installed sp2 on many computers with no problems,but there are some precautions I take. If they are brand computers (not your case but for others browsing) I check the manufactures website for info on updated drivers or what ever else they recommend before installing sp2.

I then run Ad-aware, then a full system scan with Avg or other. Then run disk clean up, check the drive for errors and defrag. I then disable any virus scan or such and anything running in the backround

I also install sp2 from cd (supplied byM$ for free), I don't recommend downloading with dialup, to slow and to many things can go wrong but ok with cable."

Rick